


school of business fraud

by djsoliloquy



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djsoliloquy/pseuds/djsoliloquy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So’s this the part where you bend me over your desk and I get ten lashes?”</p><p>Thomas’s notion of what constitutes the office hours ritual is either curiously lewd and archaic or else an exercise in verbal sleight of hand to keep them sidetracked. Johnson suspects the latter. It’s tricky and improvised rhetoric and Johnson also finds it fascinating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	school of business fraud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanyart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/gifts).



Professor William Johnson knows beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas Hickey is involved in enough illicit activity to be expelled ten times over. And that’s just in Johnson’s class. Who knows how far the plagiarism extends beyond his lecture?

A serious discussion on the matter during office hours has been a long time coming, though to Johnson’s surprise it’s Thomas who comes to _him_ —for the purpose of contesting the grade on his last essay.

“So’s this the part where you bend me over your desk and I get ten lashes?”

—And Thomas’s notions of what constitutes the office hours ritual is either curiously lewd and archaic or else an exercise in verbal sleight of hand to keep them sidetracked. Johnson suspects the latter. It’s tricky and improvised rhetoric and Johnson also finds it fascinating.

He leans back in his chair, for the first time acclimating himself to Thomas on a personal basis. “Lashes?” he asks. “Have you done anything wrong you’d like to discuss with me?”

Thomas levels a glare at him, a flicker of something sly and calculated before he returns to picking grit from under his nails. “That’s putting words in my mouth. No to the lashes, then? You got a paddle stashed in one of your drawers back there?”

Johnson holds a hand up. “Now, Thomas…”

With the sharp sound of wood on office linoleum, Thomas pushes his chair back and gets to his feet. In a few steps he’s around the desk and sitting against it, blocking Johnson in somewhat between the desk, Thomas, and the wall.  

“I’m here cause I want something,” Thomas says. He leans back and spreads his thighs so the fabric stretches across his crotch. “And I’m guessing there’s something you want too, so while we’re on the subject of putting things in my mouth why don’t we just do this the easy way like everyone else?”

“No, Thomas.”

He doubts very much Thomas makes a habit of whoring himself out every time he needs a grade changed, though the mental image of it is…intriguing. Still, Johnson’s tone is firm. He doesn’t blink as he stares his student down, even from his lower position sitting at his desk. Slowly Thomas’s expression changes, reassessing.

Thomas Hickey, Johnson is coming to appreciate, is a businessman.

“What do you want?” says Thomas bluntly.

Johnson says, “You’re helping students cheat, Thomas.”

The room goes quiet for a moment. There is no quick glance across the desk this time. “Seems an awful lot like an accusation, Mister Johnson,” Thomas says, back to boredly examining cuticles. “Almost like you’ve got proof or something.”

“Well, let me see.” Johnson opens a folder on his desk and splays out the graded essays. “I have five cases here of explicit plagiarism, and after taking a look at the students’ papers from earlier in the semester I’m willing to bet it’s been going on for a while. And there are likely more than just those five of them, aren’t there, Thomas?”

“ _No_  on proof, then?” Thomas says after a theatrically thoughtful expression. “Doesn’t sound like you’ve actually got anything on me.”

That is almost precisely what Johnson is saying. No, he doesn’t have anything to pin on Thomas Hickey , nothing that would hold up if Johnson had any interest whatsoever in dragging him before the university’s academic integrity committee. But that’s part of the reason Johnson is fighting to hold in a chuckle rather than the urge to engage in one of the more-violent-than-erotic diversions Thomas was suggesting.

“I’m not interested in proof,” Johnson says. “It isn’t my goal for you or any student to be expelled, Thomas. These essays,” he adds, rising from his chair to stand in front of Thomas and show him the five plagiarism cases. “The same identical patterns of mistakes were in each of them, sure to be noticed by a grader but not by the students, particularly not ones who trust their dealer.”

Thomas gives the papers a dutiful glance then mostly watches Johnson. With Johnson on his feet it’s now Thomas who is boxed in against the desk, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He isn’t concerned either. The trail really is almost impossible to trace. It was a close thing even finding the hint of Thomas as the perpetrator.

“None of these students have slipped before, and now all of them have at once.” Johnson tilts his head close like he’s readying to hear a secret, and he holds the folder open between them. “Why did these five suddenly get sloppy, Thomas?”

He thinks for a moment he won’t get an honest answer and that will be the end of their dealings with one other, but then a smirk tugs at the corner of Thomas’s mouth. “If I had to guess,” Thomas says, somehow sinister for how innocent he sounds, “I’d say it was cause those five suddenly got sloppy on their payments.”

As a teacher Johnson does what he can against cheating in his classes. But he finds this strangely compelling. The scruffy sincerity of that leer, the unapologetic wickedness of what Thomas isn’t quite admitting to. Johnson says, “So they missed these… payments for the fakes, and you threw them under the bus?”

Thomas turns his face up and smirks, not saying anything and not needing to. The potential in him is what is truly compelling, Johnson thinks, his as-yet unharnessed wild energy. There is a severe but enthusiastic personality standing before him. Or perhaps not standing, but at least slouching against the desk and making a candid attempt at sneaking a thigh between Johnson’s legs. As good a yes as Johnson could ask from him.

“Professors get into as much trouble as students for accepting poor and obvious bribes,” Johnson says.

Thomas is a smart lad. The knee stops knocking against his own. “Someone with an ear to the ground and a hand in the system would be more convenient,” Thomas agrees. He folds his arms, once again all business as he bites his lip and narrows his eyes. “I want an A in the class.”

He’s holding steady at a C- average right now. “B-, maybe a B,” says Johnson, “if you are very good. And I have every confidence that you will be.”

Thomas  _shifts_ —moves his hips on the desk, his eyes widen slightly—short jerks of movement quickly reined in. His mouth parts in a slow exhale that breaks at the end into a laugh. It fails to completely disguise his surprise at whatever he hadn’t been expecting, as though for a moment he wasn’t sure he’d heard Johnson correctly.

“I like getting paid up front,” he says in the second it takes to recover.

Johnson leans across Thomas to get a pen, and after a few marks he hands Thomas’s own essay back to him, a new B+ at the bottom to replace the old D. “How does that look?”

“Huh. Thanks, Mister Johnson. I guess we’ll be in touch.” At the door, Thomas casts an obvious look back at Johnson’s lap. “You sure you don’t…? On the house,” he offers with a shrug.

He waves Thomas away and takes his seat at his desk.

“That will be all, Thomas. I’ll see you in class.”

 


End file.
